Lydia Maria Child's 'Frugal Housewife' the must-read book of its day

E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune

In Lydia Maria Child's day, lobster was not a luxury. It was looked down upon in New England as poor man’s food, which may explain why a lobster salad recipe was included in a book dedicated to frugal housekeeping.

In Lydia Maria Child's day, lobster was not a luxury. It was looked down upon in New England as poor man’s food, which may explain why a lobster salad recipe was included in a book dedicated to frugal housekeeping. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)

Lydia Maria Child may be best remembered today for that beloved poem about going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house, "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day." But in the 19th century, she was a controversial author who used her pen to eloquently and fearlessly fight for the abolition of slavery and defend the rights of African-Americans, Native Americans and women. Among her wide range of work, fiction and nonfiction, was a book of recipes and domestic advice called "The Frugal Housewife."

The work, "dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy," was first published in 1829. It was a huge success, went through 33 editions (the book was later called "The American Frugal Housewife" because of a similar title in England) and ensured her place in American culinary history alongside the iconic Julia Child — who was not a relation.

While not much recalled now, Lydia Maria Child popularized the one-crust pumpkin or squash pie so universally made today, and thanks to her recipe, nearly every other New England cookbook of the 19th century included scalloped oysters, say Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, who are husband and wife, authors and food historians from Jamestown, R.I. Perhaps even more important, she worked to change attitudes.

"She wanted to make the idea of what an American is to be practical and economical and that those are positive virtues and characteristically American virtues,'' Fitzgerald said.

"She was so self-motivated," Haber said. "She went against the tide, she took risks and, you know, what is the expression? Hearing your own drummer, marching to your own drummer. She was like that."

Born in 1802 in Medford, Mass., Lydia Maria Francis grew up in middle-class New England society. Her father was a baker who scored a success with the Medford cracker, which Stavely and Fitzgerald describe as a sea biscuit in their 2011 book, "Northern Hospitality." In 1828, already a noted author, she married David Lee Child, a lawyer.

Sierra Nicole Rhoden, Chicago Tribune

Lydia Maria Child was a controversial author who used her pen to eloquently and fearlessly fight for the abolition of slavery and defend the rights of African-Americans, Native Americans and women.

Lydia Maria Child was a controversial author who used her pen to eloquently and fearlessly fight for the abolition of slavery and defend the rights of African-Americans, Native Americans and women. (Sierra Nicole Rhoden, Chicago Tribune)

"David was a reformer, an idealist, a very impractical guy,'' Haber said. He once, she noted, started a sugar beet farm to provide an alternative to sugar cane grown by slaves. The enterprise failed miserably.

"He had no money; he was dependent on her," Haber said.

Child was in her 20s when "Frugal Housewife" was written. Haber said she presented herself "as an experienced matron who is used to running households."

"Unlike other cookbooks of the time, Lydia Maria — she called herself Maria — Child didn't assume you had servants. She realized there were plenty of people in America who did not have household staff. She thought it would be useful to write a cookbook for them."

Fitzgerald said Child was writing as "Aunt Maria" for young wives who had migrated to the newly opened West or to big cities to start families and were setting up households without the help or advice of their mothers.

"It was not a highly organized treatise," Fitzgerald said. "Next to advice on how to clean your tortoiseshell comb she would have something on making plum pudding. She tried to elevate the words 'cheap' and 'common' and turn them into something people could be proud of."

Stavely and Fitzgerald say Child's recipe style is the opposite of the modern format with its ingredient list up top and its dry directives.

"Her book is written in the vernacular,'' Fitzgerald said. "Lydia Maria Child is a personality. Sometimes people didn't like it. Nathaniel P. Willis, who was a former boyfriend, ridiculed her diction. He said it was not classy. She did change a few of her wordings in later editions. She was hurt by that."

But most readers appreciated Child's approach — Fitzgerald pointed to Child biographer Carolyn L. Karcher's assertion that a majority of adult females in the United States during the 1830s had read the book.

"It had that accessibility," Fitzgerald added. "She sounded like one of them."

Lobster is a luxe food today, but in the early 19th century, lobster was looked down upon in New England as poor man's food. That may explain the inclusion of this recipe in an appendix to the 1833 edition of "The American Frugal Housewife" by Lydia Maria Child. What's interesting about this recipe is what is left unsaid. Clearly the salad requires a cooked lobster and hard-cooked egg yolks, but you'd never know it from the directions, and Child's dressing calls for a "gill" of oil and vinegar. A gill is considered to be 4 ounces or half a cup in the United States. Here's Child's original recipe as worded, followed by a modern reconstruction.

"The meat of one lobster is extracted from the shell, and cut up fine. Have fresh hard lettuce cut up very fine; mix with the lobster. Make a dressing, in a deep plate, of the yolks of four eggs cut up, a gill of sweet oil, a gill of vinegar, half a gill of mustard, half a teaspoonful of cayenne, half a teaspoon of salt; all mixed well together. To be prepared just before eaten. Chicken salad is prepared in the same way, only chicken is used instead of lobster, and celery instead of lettuce."